This post by CJAD’s Kim Fraser includes a poignant interview (in French only) with the mother of 15-year-old Marjorie Raymond, who killed herself this past Monday after three years of unrelenting bullying by her peers.
Chantal Larose, the mother of the pretty Gaspé teenager, found her daughter’s suicide note. It starts off (in French) “Dear Mom, I am terribly sorry for what I have done. Please know it’s not your fault. You are the best mother in the world, it’s just that life, I can’t go on…”
It’s hard to imagine how any parent could handle this kind of tragedy. My heart breaks for her.
Experts have begun calling this suicide in response to bullying “bullycide,” a term first used in 2001 by Neil Marr and Tim Field in their book Bullycide: Death at Playtime. The desperation these tweens and teens felt led them to take their own lives. They simply couldn’t imagine a way out.
Marjorie’s mother tells interviewer Kim Fraser that the school did not take their complaints seriously, and little was done, even when the psychological intimidation escalated this year into physical assaults. But she admits that herself didn’t realize how bad it was, even when her previously responsible student began skipping school.
Fraser ends her post by asserting that too many schools and adults still don’t take bullying seriously enough. I can’t agree enough.
And if you aren’t sure, listen to Chantal Larose’s heartbreaking plea for those in charge to listen more closely: “I wish that something would change from this. Because I can’t stand the thought that my daughter died for nothing.”
